Page 137 of The Rom-Commers

“Somebody’s got to get you into some dry clothes,” Charlie said, picking it back up. “Just pretend I’m a doctor.”

“But you’re not a doctor.”

“You should’ve thought of that before you catapulted off my diving board.”

I really was quite cold.

“Fine,” I said, not seeing a viable way to argue. “But you have to close your eyes.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Echolocate,” I said. “Like a bat.”

“Emma,” Charlie said. “That’s not—”

“There’s no way in hell I’m letting yousee me naked,” I said, in a tone like I would gladly die of hypothermia before I ever let that happen. “And I don’t think that mean ex-wife girlfriend of yours would be too thrilled about you doing that, either.”

“Fine,” Charlie said. “I’ll close my eyes.”

“Fine,” I said. “Don’t peek.”

Had I been thinking that Charlie seeing my shivering, wet, quasi-hypothermic, goose-pimpled naked body would be too erotic for either of us to handle?

Because whatever I’d just insisted on was worse.

Charlie did close his eyes—and I never saw him try to cheat—but that meant he had to put his hands all over me to figure out how to peel that wet, tangled maxi dress off.

“I think it ripped when I fell,” I said.

“It definitely did.”

“How can you tell?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Oh, god. What had Charlie seen?

At least for now, he wasn’t looking.

But since he couldn’tseeme, he had tofeelme. All over. In places I’d never even really noticed or thought about before—from the inside of my elbow, to the crown of my hip, the soft pooch below my belly button, to my… withers. And everywhere else, too. I’m telling you, those hands wereomnipresent—as he untangled knotted wet cloth, and moved limbs for better positioning, relentlessly feathering accidental brushes and strokes in unexpected places that gave me a whole different kind of shivers.

I clutched the loose sweatpants and sweatshirt to guard my frontlike a protective barrier between us. But it was no match for the touching.

I was too cold to enjoy it, of course.

Mostly.

Once the dress was in a sopping pile on Charlie’s floor, he had to come back up halfway with his hands to find my underwear elastic on my hips and then roll those down to my ankles so I could step out of them. And then he had to come back up and reach around behind my waist to unhook the low-back strapless bra, the mechanics of which totally threw him.

I guess he could have turned me around to work on the hooks. But he didn’t. He just encircled me with his arms, and I shivered nakedly there while he tugged and yanked at the hooks, the stubble of his jaw brushing against my cheek as he made almost imperceptible breaths of frustration into my ear. What did he smell like? Some kind of classic barbershop shaving cream, maybe? Sweet, and a little salty, too. Whatever it was, I wished I could steal some to take back to Texas.

“I hate this contraption,” Charlie said, in apology for taking so long.

I really was freezing. “Push andthenpull,” I said, through trembling lips.

Once every wet thing was off, I handed Charlie the sweatpants while retaining the sweatshirt—carefully positioned in front of my torso like a polyblend shield. He bent down and arranged the sweatpants so I could step into them and then worked them up my legs to my waist.

“Better?” he asked.

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